Father of 6-year-old Montreal girl stabbed to death by her mother suing Youth Protection

The father of Maélie, a six-year-old girl who was stabbed to death 80 times by her mother in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in July 2020, is suing the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’’île-de-Montréal (Centre jeunesse de Montréal) and the Quebec Health Ministry for $3 million. The girl’s mother pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and received a ten year sentence last month. The father’s lawyer Valérie Assouline spoke to CityNews.

The lawsuit claims negligence by the DPJ – that they failed to protect Maélie. The DPJ closed the girl’s file despite reports?

There were four reports from 2019 to 2020, three months prior to the murder there were two reports and the DPJ decided to close the file and to leave Maélie without any protection.

Do you feel that this girl’s death could have been avoided if this file had not been closed?

Had this file not been closed, the death of Maélie could have been avoided. Absolutely. Because, when there is drug abuse, when there is health issues, when you have such a fragile mother, you can’t leave a six-year-old without protection. And, had this case been taken care of properly, we wouldn’t be here today.

Maélie’s mother received a ten year sentence for the murder. How does the child’s family feel about this sentence?

That actually was devastating for the father. The fact also that he learned the atrocity of what happened to his daughter. 80 stabs. That was something he did not know and he learned at the trial. So I can tell you that the family is devastated and they want things to change. They never want this to happen to another child.

Can you break down what exactly you are requesting with this lawsuit?

Requesting monetary but that does not replace, of course, Maélie. A child’s life matters and that’s what this lawsuit is about. We cannot have a child that deceased because we failed to protect her and no one is responsible. So that needs to change. Each child’s life matters. Number one. And, then we want to avoid that this happens again. So we want to make sure that there is an inquiry of what happened, why we closed the file, and how we’re going to prevent this from happening again. Because what I can tell you today as a lawyer that works across the province, there are still red flags that are being ignored. And, we are still going to have unfortunately deaths of children because we fail to trust family or to see when we have reports like this. So that also needs to change. It’s like the culture doesn’t change. There’s a political willingness to make things change. But unfortunately, on the ground, it’s not changing. That needs to be addressed.

We reached out to CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l ’île-de-Montréal for a statement but they said they would not comment as the case is before the court.